Love on Main Street: A Snow Creek Christmas

by Juliet Blackwell

  She heard the door in the reception room open, and heard Didi greet Dan. Something heavy thunked onto Didi’s desk amid a great deal of oohing and ahhing.

  “Gluten-free?” Didi asked.

  “Completely. Do you mind if I leave it here?”

  “Not at all. Go on in. Ms. Monroe’s waiting for you.”

  What had he made and why was he leaving it on Didi’s desk? Never mind. She didn’t care. She didn’t even want to see him, much less whatever baked goods he’d brought. She pretended she was busy looking at tax code changes.

  He entered silently and sat down across the desk from her so she had to look at him. For once he wasn’t grinning. Christy’s heart pounded anyway, but this time it had to be nerves. Probably. “What can I help you with?”

  He subjected her to a penetrating regard, but then sighed and got down to business. “I want to set up a small education trust for Britney. The pregnant girl at the diner with no family. After her babies are born, she might want to go to college. I have some questions about the tax implications of moving funds from some of my out-of-state accounts into a local account.”

  That wasn’t what she’d expected. “I guess the bakery’s doing better than most of the Main Street businesses.”

  “It is.” He knocked lightly on her cherry desk. “But not so well I can ignore tax issues. The money I’d like Britney to have was a gift from my ex-wife. It carries a taint. It needs to be redeemed.”

  “Beyond giving it to Piper for college?”

  “Way beyond that. Besides, Piper’s covered.”

  What was the taint? She was dying of curiosity, but she couldn’t ask. Not now. “O-kay,” she said slowly. “How much do you know about the different types of trusts?”

  “Not enough about California law. Let me tell you what I’d like to do. Then you can explain the tax side of things.”

  “Go ahead.” She opened a new folder on her computer, and started taking notes while he explained. Dan had a solid grasp of what he wanted, and she was able to outline the different options in a cool, professional manner. She tried not to notice that she approved of him wanting to help Britney, for planning well for Piper’s future, and having such a good head for business and finances. It didn’t take long before she’d answered all his questions.

  “Thanks. That was exactly what I needed to know,” he said.

  “Great.” She waited for him to leave.

  He didn’t. “So about the holiday show. We can get that done without any further drama. Just like we got this done.”

  “This was twenty minutes with no attendant stress. Like an entire school full of excited kids.”

  “We can manage. We made the commitment. We don’t have a choice. Unless you want to try to explain to Dr. Tapia that Piper and Madison weren’t really fighting, it was all just a set-up to throw us together.”

  A vision of the whole of Snow Creek trying to get in on the matchmaking action made her stomach hurt. She gave him a slow nod. “You’re right.”

  “You want to lay any ground rules?”

  “No teasing, no taunting. No looks.”

  He smoldered at her, and her heart pounded harder than it ever had around him. “Like this?”

  “Like that. Stop it.”

  His lips twitched, but he squelched the grin. “Are we going to talk about it?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “I know, but I have to address the issue with Piper. Might be helpful to know how you’re handling it with Madison.”

  “You’re trying to finagle me into talking to you. You won’t stay on the subject.”

  “I can. I did today.”

  She exhaled loudly. “Can we move on without beating a dead horse?”

  “Tell you what. I’ll wait until after the holiday show is over. So we can pretend nothing happened until the nineteenth. Then, after the show, we’ll talk.”

  She didn’t want to. Talking to him made her want…things she didn’t care to specify now. “Fine. In the meantime, I’m going to talk to Madison and tell her I’ll decide her punishment for disrupting the whole school during the Christmas vacation.”

  He nodded. “I approve of letting them stew a while.”

  “One more ground rule. No baked goods.”

  “Ah. Well, okay, but I already made you a gluten-free Bûche de Noel. I realized in the middle of making it that it wasn’t going to fix anything, but I brought it anyway. I saw you looking at the one in the bakery case when you brought Madison in to apologize, and I figured you probably hadn’t had anything like that in a while. Why waste it?” He stood up before she could say anything. “I’ll get out of your hair. See you at school. All business. Totally professional. No cookies.”

  “Great.” She followed him out.

  He waved at Didi and hustled off, leaving her to inspect what was possibly the most magical Bûche de Noël ever created. The proportions were perfect. The right amount of log. Not huge, but a satisfying size. The knot placed just so, the underside of which sprouted small bracts of mushroom. At the base sat clusters of sweet little button mushrooms, and hiding under a pair of larger ones she spied a couple of marzipan elves with red-striped stockings and tiny Santa caps.

  “That man is in love with you,” Didi said.

  “No, he’s not.” Was that a sprig of real holly above the mushrooms sheltering the marzipan elves?

  “You don’t have a romantic bone in your body. Look.” Didi held one perfectly manicured nail over the elves. “A boy elf—tall with dark curly hair—and a girl elf, also tall, but with long blonde hair. Behold.” She tapped the green and white marzipan ball dangling from a piece of red thread. “Mistletoe. And both elves are happy. Look at their little smiles. And they’re holding hands.”

  So they were. “He can’t be in love with me. We haven’t even known each other a week.”

  Didi shook her head. “And you’ve never heard of love at first sight.”

  “I’ve heard of it. I don’t believe in it.”

  “Maybe you should.” She pointed at the bûche. “What are you going to do with that?”

  Christy opened her mouth to tell Didi she could take it.

  “And don’t tell me to take home the gluten-free cake made expressly for you with an elf who looks just like you on it. It’s yours. What I meant is, are you going to eat it all at once or dole it out?”

  “I can’t take it now. I have to spend a couple of hours at show practice. I’ll pick it up on my way home.”

  “I think you should look at it a good long time and think about the man who made it and what you might create together.” Didi leveled an instructive eye at her. “Then you should eat a slice every time you think you’re too mad or scared to face that.”

  She ought to drop it in the pond. “Maybe.”

  “If you dump it, I’ll find it and bring it to you, however smashed or sodden it might be.”

  Christy wasn’t going to get the last word, so she plucked her coat from the closet and departed without a backward glance at the beautiful bûche from the man who might love her.

  ***

  Dan’s cell phone rang as he was leaving for the school. It was Christy’s office. His breath froze in his lungs. She couldn’t have decided to forgive him that fast—that would be completely out of character—but he didn’t think she’d bail on the holiday show, either. Curiosity got the best of him and he answered.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. This is Didi. Be very careful with Christy. Don’t push. I’ll make sure she doesn’t stick the bûche in the freezer and forget about it. Or toss it in the pond. She was thinking about that.”

  “Thanks, Didi. I was aiming for a big gesture, but I realized halfway through baking the bûche that a cake isn’t what Christy needs. This is a job for Santa, if there ever was one.”

  He could hear Didi’s smile over the phone. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  He laughed, and in that moment, he knew what he was going to do. “Would you be willing to gi
ve me her dad’s phone number?”

  Didi rattled it off so fast he had to ask her to repeat it. “I’ll text it to you. And his email. And if anyone asks, I never called you.”

  “Give me two days notice, and I’ll deliver your own bûche anytime during the holidays, Secret Santa.”

  “Christmas Eve, 2 p.m. Big enough to serve twenty. I’ll text you the address.” She hung up. A few seconds later his phone pinged twice with the promised texts.

  Dan pulled out of the parking lot and started planning what he was going to say.

  ***

  At the end of rehearsal that afternoon, Christy zipped Madison’s parka and helped her put on her backpack.

  “Are you still mad, Mom?”

  “Do I look mad?”

  “Not really.” Madison scrutinized her. “Just quiet. And maybe a little sad.”

  Drat perceptive children. Christy made sure her smile reached her eyes. “Just a little tired. Rehearsal went well. Except for the fact that Gavin Crawford can’t seem to remember his lines. I wonder if anyone else knows the lost elf’s lines? Are you ready for movie night?”

  “Sure.” Madison waved at Piper and Dan, then led the way out.

  She didn’t sound any more excited than Christy felt. It had been a long day, full of things she couldn’t stop thinking about. At least the holiday show practice had proceeded with only a few bumps and wobbles—third-grader Jordan Chang tied a fake spider to Madden Snyder’s shoelace, and one of the stage curtains came down in the ensuing stampede of third-grade girls—but there were no hiccups of a personal nature. Dan greeted her politely, and he didn’t look at her in that way that made her heart pound. Her heart still pounded, but she could see he was trying so she couldn’t completely blame him. Neither could she complain that he was anything less than professional, even though she found herself slightly disgruntled by the end of the rehearsal. It wasn’t that she exactly missed his smiles, but something was…off.

  He’d honored her wishes. She should have been pleased. Instead she felt let down, which in turn made her annoyed with herself.

  In the car on the way home, her phone dinged with a text. Madison was playing “Angry Birds” on the phone.

  “Who’s that from?” Dan? No, no, no. “See if you can read it.”

  “I can read it,” Madison said immediately.

  “Then read it to me.”

  “It’s from Didi. She says ‘pick up the cake.’ What cake?”

  Clever Didi.

  When Christy didn’t answer right away, Madison demanded, “Mom, what cake? Did you buy a cake?”

  “No. It was a gift. It’s at the office.”

  “From Dan, right?”

  “Mmm.” She stopped at the corner, then opted not to go down Main Street. Past the bakery.

  “I’ll bet it’s a beautiful cake,” Madison said wistfully.

  Christy knew she was being played. The trouble was that it worked. It was a beautiful cake, and Dan had clearly made it with Madison in mind, too. It was a bûche to inspire a lifelong tradition.

  “Even if you’re going to throw it away,” Madison said, overplaying the teensiest bit. “I’d like to see it. Grandma told me you used to love a French Christmas cake made to look like a forest log. Is it that kind of a Christmas cake?”

  Resistance was futile. Anything she said could and would be used against her by someone: her daughter, her mother, or Dan. She turned left onto the street her office was on. “Okay,” she said cheerfully. “You can see it. Then we’ll chuck it in the pond.”

  Madison leaned forward to set the phone on the console between the front seats. “Sounds good.”

  “You sound awfully chipper about tossing a cake you haven’t even seen yet.”

  “Didi wants you to pick it up. You will.”

  It rankled to be so predictable. “The pond hasn’t frozen at the deep end yet.”

  She turned into the parking lot outside her office. It was one of the few sleek, modern buildings in town, all glass, granite and redwood outside, three stories high but not obtrusive.

  “Come on,” Christy said once she’d parked.

  Madison unbuckled herself and was out of the car in a flash. By the time Christy caught up to her, she was bouncing. “Can we have cake for dinner?”

  Christy stifled a sigh. “What do you think?”

  Madison rushed through the door the instant it opened. There, on Didi’s desk, spot-lit under the desk lamp that had been angled to show it off, sat Dan’s creation. Madison stopped short, eyes wide, lips parted. “It’s beautiful,” she said in a hushed tone. “Look at the little elves!”

  Christy looked. This time, something in her heart melted just a smidgeon. It probably had more to do with Madison’s expression of wonder than Dan.

  “Mom, did you notice that he made the elves look like you and him? And they’re holding hands? Mom?”

  She couldn’t tell if Madison was scared or excited. “Yes. I noticed.”

  “Piper and I knew you two would like each other. You do like him, don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure how I feel.” That was honest, if not forthcoming.

  “I think you should figure it out,” her daughter said firmly. “Because anyone who makes a cake like this for you loves you. You get that, right?”

  Christy pulled Madison backwards to lean against her and wrapped her arms around her from behind. “It’s not that simple, chickadee.”

  “I think it is. We have to take it home. It’s too beautiful to leave where we can’t see it. Even if we can’t eat it.”

  “Well,” Christy conceded, “maybe I won’t chuck it in the pond.”

  Madison nodded.

  Christy picked up the bûche on its platter and carried it carefully out to the car. Madison strapped herself into her car seat, and Christy settled the cake on her lap.

  Madison curled her small fingers tightly around the white porcelain. “I won’t let it fall.”

  The simple words howled through Christy like a winter gale. Was that what she was doing with her heart? Not letting it fall? Clinging with all her might to a way of being in a world that had been beautiful, magical even, but which had changed, as most things did. She wasn’t eight-years-old anymore. She was thirty-five. She wasn’t a broken-hearted little girl. She had a daughter who filled her heart fuller than she’d dreamed was possible. She had parents who, while imperfect, loved her. Yet she longed for more, though seeking more might invite disaster.

  Without thinking, Christy snitched a little corner of frosting from the bottom edge of the cake with her pinky and stuck it in her mouth. Rich, decadent dark chocolate with hints of caramel exploded over her tongue. She went back for another swipe and held it up for Madison to lick.

  “Wow,” her daughter said. “I think we have to try a slice for desert.”

  Christy savored the taste of Dan’s frosting. It wasn’t enough. She wanted more. “Yeah, I think we might.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Monday after school, Dan stopped in the library before the holiday show rehearsal to talk to Madison and Piper without Christy eavesdropping.

  “Did your mom throw the Bûche de Noel in the pond?” he asked Madison.

  “Nope. We took it home. We’re eating it. A tiny slice for each of us each night. It’s amazing.”

  “Your mom is eating it?” Well, well. Better news than he’d hoped for.

  “Yep. Are you in love with her?”

  Both girls looked at him expectantly. “That’s something a man likes to tell a woman in person. When it’s the case.” He felt his cheeks heat. For God’s sake. Since when could two six-year-old girls make him blush? He didn’t remember blushing when he was fourteen and Shoshanna Eichelman caught him telling his best friend Mark Whitten how much he loved her because she was good at math and baseball, on top of having boobs. He felt a lot more vulnerable now. Piper and Madison exchanged ‘I-told-you-so’ looks, which made even the tip of his nose burn.

  “We have a plan
,” Piper announced.

  Madison wiggled excitedly. “You do?”

  “It’s my dad’s plan. He’s being kind of sneaky about it.”

  “Can I help?” Madison looked up at him, eyes sparkling.

  “Your job is to keep your mom eating that cake and thinking nice things about Piper and me,” Dan told her. “The rest is a secret. A Christmas secret. Even Piper doesn’t know.”

  “That’s true.” Piper held out her hand. “Let’s shake on it.”

  Madison shook it, then Dan’s. “Not a word to your mom, right?”

  “About what?” Madison asked.

  Dan grinned and caught Piper’s eye. “Smart girl. We might want to keep her.”

  He left the girls giggling behind him.

  ***

  Christy made Dan’s Bûche de Noël last a whole week. On Friday night, she placed the last thin slice onto a china dessert plate and handed Madison a silver fork. “It’s too small to split evenly so we can share the last piece.”

  “Cool.” Madison sectioned off a tiny bite. “We could always order another one just like this.”

  Except that it wouldn’t be just like this one, the one that Dan had stayed up all night making even after he realized it wasn’t going to make her fall into his arms. Christy nibbled frosting off a tine. Even a week old, it was still fresh and rich. It was a gluten-free miracle. Added to that, Dan had been nothing but polite and professional at the holiday show rehearsals. That was something of a miracle, too.

  Okay, maybe that had been more of a let down than a miracle. She hadn’t thought he’d do it. She was impressed he had. But…she wasn’t any happier with him doing what she asked than she had been with him flirting. She missed his attention. It had made her feel…she wasn’t sure what, but feeling something besides irritation during the whole holiday rigmarole had been a step up. Now she was grumpier than she usually was at Christmas, and she had to hide it at every rehearsal and with Madison, who was reveling in Christmas cheer this year. Knowing Santa wasn’t real hadn’t taken much of the sparkle off her sugarplum dreams.